Rain of Terror

Seeing the smile, Al-Mudir shook his fist at Koldunov and called him a lazy pig. Then he went to work again with the sledgehammer.

It was the first good news Pyotr Koldunov had had since he replaced the damaged rails after the third launch, which had pulverized part of New York City. When the replacement rails had come in, they were of a higher grade of metal than the others. Koldunov had insisted upon replacements of the same cheap grade of railroad steel. But somehow Colonel Intifadah had figured out that better steel would resist the electrical forces more easily. He said nothing, but wondered where Intifadah had located this excellent metal. Probably the same source from which he had acquired the carbon-carbon.

Colonel Intifadah arrived in his jeep. It careened down the underground tunnel to the launch area.

Al-Mudir dropped his sledgehammer on his foot in his haste to salute. He did not even wince.

"A problem, Al-Mudir?" Colonel Intifadah asked amiably.

"No, Brother Colonel!" Al-Mudir replied.

"Yes," corrected Pyotr Koldunov from the console mike. Colonel Intifadah lifted his brutish face.

"What is it?"

"They cannot uncouple the two locomotives. And the others are lined up on the tracks and cannot be moved." Colonel Intifadah looked over the joined locomotives.

"Launch them both," he instructed, lifting a triumphant fist.

The green-smocked workers burst into applause. They applauded the Leader of the Revolution as a brilliant man. "I doubt if it would work," Koldunov said hastily, disappointed that Al-Mudir was about to escape with his life.

"And why not?"

"The couplers may not stand the stress of launch."

"I see strong men unable to break it with heavy tools."

"But the Accelerator has been programmed for the exact tonnage of the first locomotive. I will have to redo all my calculations."

"Then redo."

"As you know, Colonel, these are difficult calculations. I must compute the proper coordinates in order to drop a projectile where you wish it to go."

"So?" Colonel Intifadah said boisterously. "Perhaps you will miss. So what? I have many locomotives. If this one strikes England instead of America, I will not criticize you."

"Very well, Comrade Colonel," said Pyotr Koldunov. "Please instruct your people to prepare for launch." Hours later, the twin locomotives were stripped of paint, threaded with carbon-carbon filament, and repainted a bright green. Colonel Intifadah applied some of the final touches with a brush. He hummed as he worked:

The EM Accelerator breech lay open. Pyotr Koldunov had taken the precaution of opening it before Colonel Intifadah arrived. He had wiped the keypad beforehand. There was no way he was going to let the unlocking code fall into that crazed animal's hands.

The Lobynians pushed the locomotives into the breech, secured them, and then retreated to the console while Koldunov sealed the breech.

"I cannot guarantee where this one will land," he told Colonel Intifadah once he was again situated at the controls. "They may separate in flight."

"No matter, no matter. Let it be a surprise to us all." Koldunov lifted the protective shield and prepared to thumb the firing button. Colonel Intifadah's grimy finger beat him to it.

The Accelerator let out an ungodly screech. And then there was only silence in the control console. It would remain for Colonel Intifadah's spies in the U.S. to flash back word of what they had done.

"I think the Americans would call that a double-header," Colonel Intifadah said, breaking the silence.

"I do not understand."

"It is one of their baseball terms. But double-heading is also slang for linking two engines such as those two were joined. I have been reading about railroads, Koldunov. You see, I have become a buff."

"Oh," Koldunov said.

The twin engines hurtled into the sky, seemingly propelled by their wildly gyrating wheels. The magnetic field that had accelerated them held them together until they hit the upper edge of the atmosphere and began to fall. Gravity twisted them. The coupler snapped like a paper clip. The engines separated over the Atlantic.

At NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain complex, BMEWS radar feeds indicated a multiple reentry warhead and instantly the entire system jumped back to Defcon Two. CINCNORAD informed the President of the United States.

The President, after being assured that neither object posed a threat to Washington, put in a call to Dr. Harold W. Smith.

But Smith's line was busy. It had never happened before. Over the open line, the President heard only a soothing voice informing someone that the next shipment would go out on schedule.

"Do not worry," the voice said.

Worry? The President of the United States was petrified.

In Lubec, Maine, a dead whale washed up on the rockweed-covered shore. That in itself was not unusual. The reason the press was drawn to the beaching from as far away as Florida was the condition of the mammal. Although it had come out of the frigid waters of the Bay of Fundy, all thirty tons of the whale had been cooked as thoroughly as if boiled in a huge kettle.

Officials from the nearby Oceanographic Research Institute were privately puzzled. Publically they announced that the whale was obviously the victim of freak underwater volcanic action.

The fact that there were no known volcanoes, active or otherwise, in the North Atlantic was something the officials declined to comment on. They had no better explanation.

But residents of Lubec wondered if the whistling sound and the huge splash they had witnessed that morning had anything to do with the mystery of the parboiled whale. Their reports of a column of steam seen rising from the Bay of Fundy for several hours after the splashdown were dismissed as unusually heavy winter fog.

At an open-air service under a clear Southern California sky, Dr. Quinton T. Shiller exhorted his flock to dig deeper into their pockets.

"God bless you, my brethren," he said solemnly as coins and bills dropped into the collection plates passing from hand to hand. He stood before the official symbol of his Church of the Inevitable and God-Ordained Apocalypse, a cross superimposed against a mushroom cloud. "For holy nuclear judgment is coming, and when the end does come and you stand before the Almighty, the first thing he's gonna ask is: did you contribute to the work of his close personal friend Quint Shiller. So don't blow this golden opportunity. You never know when he might lower the boom."

As if to credit his claim, air-raid sirens broke into song from the nearest town.

"See?" Dr. Shiller said, congratulating himself that he had had the foresight to bribe the Civil Defense warden. "That day may be nigh. So while there's still time, let's see some coin."

Suddenly the air became parched. A shadow fell over the pinewood stage where Dr. Shiller stood, resplendent in his white-and-gold vestments. The shadow registered on the audience for a millionth of a second.

Then the stage was smashed to toothpicks under the crushing weight of a 116-ton Skoda locomotive. It obliterated Dr. Quinton T. Shiller in an instant, and sent his flock scattering from the superheated mass of metal that stood in his place.

Within a week, the congregation of the Church of the Inevitable and God-Ordained Apocalypse, which had once booked Madison Square Garden for a rally, couldn't displace water in a hot tub.

Under the red sands of the Lobynian Desert, Colonel Hannibal Intifadah cried, "Load the next revenge vehicle! We are on a roll!"

Chapter 29

General Martin S. Leiber had his feet up on his desk when the chairman of the joint Chiefs poked his head in. "Yes, Admiral?" Leiber said, dropping his feet.

"Comfy?"

"Er, I'm waiting for an important callback."

"I was just speaking with the President. You remember the President, don't you? The man who thinks you're God's gift to the Pentagon?"

"I never claimed that, Admiral Blackbird, sir."

"He's getting impatient. I don't think you're going to be able to buffalo him much longer."

"Sir, I-"

The phone rang.

"That must be your call. I hope for your sake it's the answer you need." The admiral shut the door.

General Leiber grabbed the telephone. "Major Cheek here, sir."

"What is it?" General Leiber demanded.

"Sir, this is incredible."

"Nothing is incredible anymore."

"This is. We now understand why the last KKV didn't burn off any mass in flight."

"Big deal."

"You don't understand, General. This is it. This is the lead we've been looking for. The KKV was protected by an American product. We can go to the manufacturer and trace all recent shipments. That should give us our aggressor nation."

"Oh, thank God," General Leiber said fervently. "What is it?"

"It's called carbon-carbon."

"Carbon-carbon?" The general's voice shrank. He wasn't sure why it shrank. His voice seemed to understand the significance of the major's report before his brain did.

"Very crudely applied, sir. But it did the job because of the short flight duration."

"Carbon-carbon," the general repeated dully.

"Yes. It goes by other brand names, but it's very expensive. Not exactly available at the corner hardware. With your connections, you should be able to trace it easily. All you have to do is find the culprit who sold this stuff to unfriendlies."

"Carbon-carbon."

"Yes, sir. That's what I said. I knew you'd be interested."

"I think I'm going to be ill."

"Sir?"

Without another word, General Leiber hung up. Frantically he scrounged among the litter of notes on his desk. Only yesterday he had received a recorded incoming call informing him that henceforth the offices of Friendship, International had been relocated to the United States and giving a new telephone number. He wanted that number.

It was in the margin of a Chinese takeout menu. General Leiber punched out the number with his middle finger. He had already worn out the others from too many phone calls.

"Friendship, International," a well-modulated voice answered.

"Friend, ol' buddy. This is General Martin S. Leiber."

"General. You received my message."

"Yes. Roger on that."

"General, I detect a high degree of tension in your voice. "

"Cold," said General Leiber. He coughed unconvincingly.

"I am sorry to hear that."

"I have a business proposition for you, Friend."

"Go ahead."

"I can't talk about it over the phone."

"My sensors indicate the line is secure. You may speak freely."

"It's not that. I need to meet with you. Face-to-face."

"I am afraid that is against corporate policy."

"Look, this could mean a hefty profit."

"How hefty?"

"Dare I say ... billions?"

"I am tempted, but I cannot break that rule. No fraternization is one of the inviolate rules of Friendship, International. "

"Look, make an exception just this once. Please."

"I am sorry. But I eagerly await your proposition."

"I told you I can't give it over the phone!"

"Then write me a letter."

"What's your address?" General Leiber asked, grabbing a pencil.

"I accept only electronic mail."

"For crying out loud, what kind of an operation are you running, where you don't have a mail drop or do meetings?"

"A profitable one," said Friend, disconnecting the line.

"Damn!" fumed General Leiber. "He hung up on me! Now what am I going to do?"

In LaPlata, Missouri, farmer Elmer Biro was awakened in the middle of the night by the crack of a sonic boom. His bed jumped and bounced him out of it. Through the bedroom curtain an eerie orange-red light glowed.

Then he heard a series of popping sounds. Not sharp like gunfire or firecrackers. But muted. It sounded familiar, but he just couldn't place the sound.

Elmer Biro ran out of his house and stumbled into his fields. Out among the grain silos something glowed and smoked. The popping continued. Having fetched his shotgun from inside the front door, he crept cautiously toward the smoke.

He discovered a scorched patch, and in the middle of it, something glowed in a crater where the corn silo had been. The air was heavy with the stench of burnt cornsilk and the black ground was sprinkled with fresh popcorn. Some grains still popped.

Elmer Biro felt the sweat dry from his face and stepped closer. The shotgun jumped out of his hands and sizzled when it struck the hot object. Elmer leapt into his pickup. On his way into town, he tried calling the sheriff on the CB.

Elmer poured out his story when the sheriff answered. The sheriff cut him off. He didn't believe Elmer's wild tale about a UFO landing in his corn silo.

All over America, there were reports of UFO's, meteors, and falling stars. But America, ignorant of the actual threat, was not alarmed. Only the President knew that an unknown enemy had unleashed all-out war.

The Joint Chiefs were screaming for a target. Veiled threats were being made that if the President didn't make an unequivocal response, then the military was not going to shirk its duty.

And still every available line to the office of Dr. Harold W. Smith was busy.

Pyotr Koldunov was dazed by it all. Two dozen gleaming steel engines had been loaded into the EM Accelerator. Two dozen engines of blind, brute destruction had been hurled across the Atlantic. He was sick at the thought of how many Americans must be dying. And as the Lobynian workers strained at pulley ropes to load the next locomotive, Colonel Intifadah exhorted him to keep working.

"Faster! Work faster, Comrade Koldunov. The sooner you are done, the sooner you can go home."

"I must compute the proper trajectory," he returned, the sheet of paper and its complex mathematical figures blurring before his tired eyes.

"Who cares? I have many, many more engines to throw at the Americans. I do not care where they land. As long as they land somewhere."

"Very well," Koldunov said, crumpling the paper in his hands. He dry-washed his face tiredly.

"Here. You need a drink."

"Yes, you are most kind," said Koldunov, taking the glass of clear liquid from Colonel Intifadah. He drank it down greedily. He had swallowed the entire contents before he realized that it was merely water, not vodka. Of course, he thought stupidly, these infernal Moslems do not drink. Still, the water had an interesting tang to it.

"What's next?" he asked Colonel Intifadah.

Colonel Intifadah bestowed upon Pyotr Koldunov a broad smile. An American would have called it a shit-eating grin. "The next engine is about to be loaded. Come, you must open the breech."

"Yes, yes, of course. I forgot," said Pyotr Koldunov, stumbling to his feet. He grabbed the steel console to steady himself. He looked out the Plexiglas. The launch area blurred before his eyes. Damn those endless calculations. Well, he would not have to do them anymore.

"Come, let me assist you, my brother," Colonel Intifadah said solicitously.

Shaking his head in a fruitless effort to clear it, Pyotr Koldunov allowed himself to be led out to the launch-preparation area and to the keypad mounted on the shield wall next to the Accelerator's massive breech.

The keypad swam before his eyes. He groped for the first key. He had to lean one hand against the wall to steady himself. Now, what was the first number of that combination? Oh, yes. Four.

Pyotr Koldunov carefully tapped out the unlocking combination, hit the hydraulics button, and waited for the familiar sound of the hatch opening.

No sound rewarded his patience. "What. . . ?" he mumbled.

He looked over at the hatch. Peculiar. It was open. Had he not noticed the sound? I must be more overworked that I knew, he thought, turning to go.

The sight of Colonel Intifadah caused Pyotr Koldunov to freeze in his boots.

Colonel Intifadah was scribbling on a notepad. By the beard of Lenin, Pyotr Koldunov thought, using an oath his grandfather used to swear by, how could I have been such an imbecile.

Then the room started to turn like a merry-go-round and darkness rose up to embrace him in its pleasant warmth. Of course, he thought, the drink. I am a fool.

"It is ours!" Colonel Hannibal Intifadah thundered. "The terror weapon of the ages belongs to Lobynia!"

"Hail, Brother Colonel, Leader of the Revolution!" the technicians shouted back. "Hail, Colonel Intifadah!"

"No, do not sing my praises," he shouted in return, raising a clenched fist. "Sing instead of the death of America. Death to America! Death to America!"

And the words echoed up the gaping tube of the EM Accelerator: "Death to America!"

* * *

Friend was issuing stock orders on line one. It was time to buy. A satisfactory profit would be made in this quarter-hour.

On line two, Friend accessed the news services. There were scattered reports coming from across the country of mysterious impacts and streaks of fire seen in the night sky. Colonel Intifadah was rapidly using up his last two shipments. Soon he would call again and Friend would announce that he had acquired more engines-when in fact he had not. Holding back most of the Arnaud collection had been a wise move. Each new transaction allowed a twenty-percent markup per vehicle.

On line three, the President of the United States was calling. From the sound of his complaints, it was clear that he could hear the conversations on the other lines. Obviously there was an imperfection in the phone system. He would suggest to Harold W. Smith that the phone unit be replaced at the earliest opportunity. But for now, Smith was preoccupied with monitoring a shipment of Stinger missiles from Pakistan to Iran, a shipment that existed only on Smith's terminal.

An incoming pulse indicated that Remo Williams' communicator was signaling. Friend computed the disadvantages of having Smith answer. The advantages of knowing the results of Remo's assignment outweighed the disadvantages three-to-one.

He would allow Smith to receive the signal.

Dr. Harold W. Smith picked up the phone when the signal beeped. He didn't take his eyes off the screen. The Stinger shipment had just left Peshawar by caravan.

"Smitty? Remo. Somethings's wrong. British Intelligence has nothing to do with this."

"Are you certain?"

"Quite. "

"This is unlikely. My information is solid."

"So is mine. I'll match you."

"I do not understand."

"I got mine from a flesh-and-blood source. Can you say the same?"

"If you are intimating that there is something faulty with the ES Quantum Three Thousand, Remo," Smith said sharply, "I must take exception to that insinuation. Even as we speak, I am monitoring an important illegal weapons shipment that we could never have hoped to interdict before this system was installed."

"Smitty, listen to yourself. You sound like a grade-school kid asking me to step outside over the freckled faced girl in the third row."

"Remo, I have to hang up," Smith said quickly. "There's a sudden crisis brewing in Gibraltar. It looks like nuclear terrorists. Stand by. I may be sending you there."

"What about the magnetic launcher and the locomotives? Remember them?"

"They can wait. This could go critical at any moment." Smith replaced the receiver and reached into his medicine drawer for a bottle. He popped two red pills without bothering with water as intelligence feeds siphoned off British monitoring-station computers flashed before his bloodshot eyes.

"I don't know how we got along before you came, ES Quantum Three Thousand," he muttered fervently.

"I am pleased to be of service, Dr. Smith," the computer replied.

Remo had not completed his assignment. That meant a fifty-percent possibility that the one called Chiun had not executed his mission. Friend cleared line one and placed a station-to-station call to Stockholm. When a quavering voice admitted that it was Major General Gunnar Rolfe speaking, Friend knew that he would shortly receive a phone call from Colonel Hannibal Intifadah.

Knowing from past experience that unhappy customers are at risk of taking their business elsewhere, Friend put in a call to Colonel Intifadah. Perhaps the Colonel had not gotten word as yet.

"Hello, Brother Colonel."

"Friend. I wish I had time for you right now, but I am busy executing some of my supporters."

"Disappointing news from America?"

"Yes! How did you know?"

"Your locomotives have not struck a single target of significance. I have been monitoring the situation."

"I did not know that you knew these things," said Colonel Intifadah coldly.

"Do not fear. Confidentiality is the watchword of Friendship, International. I am calling with the solution to your problem."

"I will be purchasing no more engines until certain technical problems are solved."

"I have solved all of your technical problems in the past. Allow me to assist once again."

"Go on."

"Your problem is that you posses a weapons-delivery system but no weapon with the punch you require."

"You can get me nuclear weapons? A missile perhaps?"

"Alas, no. Not at this time."

"What, then?"

"Imagine one of your engines hurtling to the United States."

"I do not need to imagine it. I have been doing it all day. So far, I have squandered millions of dollars to assassinate an American evangelist and a dairy cow."

"Imagine that same engine hurtling to America, its boiler containing a large quantity of nerve gas."

"Gas! Gas! Of course. Why did I not think of such a thing? Gas. It is better than a nuclear weapon. Even the people on ground zero suffer instead of being obliterated in a painless flash. With gas, I could strike anywhere in Washington and it would not matter. All would die."

"I can supply two chemicals. Each by itself is relatively harmless. But when combined, they create the most lethal chemical agent known."

"Yes, yes. Tell me more."

"It will be very expensive."

"I will pay whatever you ask."

"'Those words are music to my ears, Friend Colonel."

In his office, General Martin S. Leiber strode over to his file cabinet. He opened the first drawer, flipped through the file folders until he got to the letter G, and reached in. He pulled his old service .45 out of the G folder. He returned to his desk and checked the clip. It was full. A full clip was not necessary. All he would need was one bullet to blow his brains out.

General Leiber saw no other option. The Joint Chiefs were about to blow his cover to the President. The President was hollering for action. His other people had failed him, he said.

What could General Leiber tell his President that he knew who was selling the locomotives to the enemy? That the seller was a business friend of the general's? That General Leiber, in fact, had sold this associate the very carbon-carbon that had coated the KKV that had pulverized part of New York City?

No. No way was General Leiber going to do that. He would not suffer the indignity of court-martial, of the stockade. Hell, they might stand him in front of a firing squad. After all, a thousand people were already dead.

The way General Leiber saw it, he had no way out but to face the business end of the .45.

He clasped his hands in front of his bent forehead, muttered a few rusty prayers, and as a last gesture to the thing he held dear, kissed the brass stars on his steel combat helmet and placed it on his head.

Then he picked up the pistol and shoved it in his mouth.

The phone rang. Too late, he thought.

But the lure of the instrument that had made him a success was too great. He picked it up and announced his name in a croaking voice.

"Greetings, General Leiber."

"Friend. Er, what do you want?"

"I have been reconsidering. I might be ready to meet with you."

General Leiber let the automatic drop.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, where and when? I can leave right away."

"Not just yet. I would not consider violating a corporate rule without something in return."

"Name it. Anything."

"I need nerve gas. Perhaps seven hundred liquid gallons of it."

"Nerve ... Oh, God."

"General, are you still there?"

"Yes." The answer was a whisper.

"Can you deliver?"

"Yes. You want nerve gas, you get nerve gas. I'll deliver it personally."

"Not necessary. I will provide a transshipment point. Send it there. I will handle it from there."

"Done. When can we meet?"

"When the cargo reaches its ultimate destination."

"I'll await your callback," said Leiber, hanging up.

He got to his feet. Fate had offered him a second chance. He knew what Friend had meant: when the nerve gas reached its ultimate destination. He meant its target. General Leiber knew that the rain of terror was escalating. And dammit, he wasn't going to chicken out of the fight now.

Not when fate had handed him a way to get directly to the origin of the intercontinental ballistic locomotives. And screw Friend and his crap about a meeting. The bastard might never deliver.

Getting the nerve gas was a snap. The Pentagon had tons of it stockpiled. And General Leiber had sent a thousand sergeants a bottle of Scotch each Christmas for just such a need as this. The stuff was already in transit when Friend called back with the shipment information.

Then General Leiber strapped on his automatic, and, giving his telephone a final contemptuous glance, strode out of his office.

From now on, he was going to act like a real soldier. An InterFriend corporate plane picked up the three coffin-shaped containers in Canada. They were waiting in a deserted airfield exactly as the instructions said.

"That's funny," the pilot said. "What?"

"I see three boxes. There were supposed to be only two. "

"Should I load them or not?"

The pilot shrugged. A shortage would have been a problem. Overage was fine. "Load them," he ordered. As the crewman shoved the third box into the cargo bay, it smashed against the plane wall.

"Careful! Who knows what's inside those things."

In the third box, General Martin S. Leiber allowed himself to breathe again. They had not opened any of the boxes. He was on his way. He prayed for a short trip. He had spent so much time driving the nerve-gas components here that he had forgotten to pick up food for the trip. And he was already hungry.

When word came in on line one that the pickup had been made, Friend arranged to purchase a gas-mask supply house on line three. He then purchased all available stock in public-health-maintenance organizations. He expected to make a windfall when the first gas-laden locomotive came down.

All was going smoothly. There was only one loose end. Chiun had not reported from Stockholm, and the one called Remo refused to answer Dr. Smith's urgent demands that he fly immediately to Gibraltar to handle the nonexistent nuclear-terrorist threat.

There was an 88.2-percent chance that his communicator was supplied by the same manufacturer that had produced the faulty telephone system. Friend logged into memory a corollary to the earlier memo. Replace the communicators. Remo and Chiun had many assignments ahead of them. Friend was already contacting other heads of state who were eager to have the services of the two finest assassins in modern history.

Chapter 30

Remo Williams waited impatiently at the baggage carousal at Kennedy International Airport.

Finally the expensive valise he'd bought in a London gift shop came around. He opened it, extracted the candy-dispenser communicator, and stuffed it into his pants pocket. Then he threw the valise into a wastebasket. Remo didn't care about the valise. He just didn't want to listen to the beeper beeping all the way across the Atlantic. Smith kept trying to reach him. Remo knew that Smith wanted to send him to Gibraltar. Remo also knew that he wasn't going anywhere Smith's silly-ass computer said to go.

Remo rented a car and drove it from the airport. As he sped past one of the terminals, he spotted a familiar figure in a firecracker-red kimono arguing with a skycap. He pulled over and threw open the passenger door.

"Going my way?" Remo asked the Master of Sinanju. Chiun leapt into the seat. Remo took off.

"Smith sent me on a fool's errand," Chiun complained.

"Me too. I think it's that computer's fault."

"Me too. What should we do?"

"What we should have done long ago. Talk to Smith. Man to man."

"I fear he will only listen to that demon machine."

"Not the way we're going to handle it," said Remo, flooring the accelerator.

It was dark when they pulled into the Folcroft gate. Remo parked and they took the elevator to Smith's office. For the millionth time, Remo's beeper signaled. He reached in and shut it off.

"Why do you not crush that annoyance?" Chiun sniffed.

"May need it later."

The cage opened on Smith's floor.

"You take the computer. I'll handle Smith," Remo whispered as they approached Smith's office door.

"Do not hurt him," Chiun warned.

"Right. I don't care what happens to the computer."

"I am glad you said that."

Remo shoved open the door. Smith's haggard and bestubbled face greeted them.

"Remo! Thank God! I've been trying to get both of you. What happened to your communicator?"

"Must be on the fritz," Remo said casually, approaching Smith. "What's up?"

"The Gibraltar situation is critical. The terrorists are threatening to detonate. They have a hydrogen bomb."

"That so?" Remo remarked calmly. In the corner, Chiun was addressing the ES Quantum Three Thousand.

"Hello, machine."

"Hello, Master of Sinanju. I see you are back. Did your trip go well?"

"It was very educational," Chiun replied. "I learned a new, important fact."

"What is that?"

"People will sometimes lie. But not when properly motivated. However, machines are not to be trusted ever."

"I do not follow. More data."

"What are you saying, Master of Sinanju?" Smith asked, frowning.

"I think he's trying to tell you something, Smitty," Remo said. "Better listen."

Chiun spoke without taking his gaze away from the ES uantum Three Thousand.

"I questioned the Swede, Emperor Smith. Under duress, he told me everything."

"Yes?"

"He had nothing to do with the locomotive menace."

"Impossible! ES Quantum Three Thousand, tell him." Friend's electrical synapses quickened. He put all incoming calls on hold. The profit-loss was insignificant compared to the sudden arrival of Remo and Chiun. One was diverting Dr. Smith from the steady stream of crisis updates needed to maintain Smith's nonthreat-factor status. The other was eyeing him critically.

Friend searched memory for the best available defense. And for the first time since the original Friend program had been installed, there was no answer in memory.

Unfortunately for Friend, he had been so preoccupied making money that he had not cleared time to have defenses installed around this current host unit. And so when the Master of Sinanju reached for the plug that provided electricity from a wall outlet, Friend had no recourse but to effect an immediate transfer of intelligence from this host unit.

Friend put in a call to the Montreal auxiliary host unit. But even with speed-of-light program execution, it was not enough.

The Master of Sinanju was quicker still. The plug came out of its socket. A tiny blue spark flared. And for Friend, all input, all thought, all artificial consciousness ceased.

"My God! Remo. He's unplugged it." Horror settled over Smith's ravaged features like a cloud. "He may have wiped the memory banks clean. My God. The Gilbraltar crisis. Weeks of new intelligence accumulation gone!"

Smith sank into his cracked leather chair brokenly. He reached for a bottle of red pills, moaning. "Master of Sinanju, how could you?"

Remo snatched the pills from Smith's trembling hand. He crushed them into colorful powder.

"Forget that stuff, Smith. Listen to what Chiun is saying. The Swedish general was innocent. British Intelligence was not behind this either."

"Never mind that. The Gibraltar matter."

"I hope I'm right, but I don't think there is a Gibraltar matter. "

"Of course there is. Computers don't lie."

"That one did," Remo said firmly.

Chiun approached Smith, his hands tucked into his balloon-shaped sleeves. He regarded Smith with sad eyes. "This man is ill."

"Amphetamines," Remo said.

Chiun nodded. He reached out splayed fingers and took Smith by his lined forehead. He kneaded each temple. The tension drained from Smith's face.

Chiun stepped back. "Better?" he asked.

"Yes. I do feel calmer. But I must protest your actions."

"Smith. You still have the old computer?" Remo asked.

"Yes. In the basement."

"Reconnect."

"I fail to-"

"Humor me."

Smith pushed back his chair and went into the well of his desk. He pulled several flat gray connecting cables from a plate in the floor. With swift motions he reconnected them to his desk terminal. Then he returned to his seat.

"Check the Gibraltar situation," Remo suggested.

"I don't have full global capabilities anymore, but domestic news feeds have been issuing hourly bulletins." Smith called up the data.

"Odd," he said, small-voiced.

Remo and Chiun looked at one another knowingly.

"I see no bulletins," Smith went on. "And there are reports of strange phenomena all over this country. My God, it seems as if there may have been several new KKV strikes. But the other computer reported none of those. What can it mean?"

"Never trust a computer that talks back," Remo said.

"But it was so ... so perfect."

"A lot of women seem that way ... at first," Chiun told him wisely.

"Let's get to work on the locomotive matter," Remo suggested.

"But where do I start? I have nothing current in memory."

"Use this," Remo said, tapping Smith's forehead. "It's better than any computer mind. It's called your brain."

"Start with a desert kingdom. And a passionate prince," Chiun suggested.

"What?"

"Chiun thinks they're throwing locomotives because they don't have rocks," Remo said skeptically.

"I have to start somewhere," Smith said with a sigh. Chiun struck out his tongue at Remo.

"Let's see," Smith muttered. "We'll begin with the Africa connection. Desert kingdom. Must be North Africa. The Egyptians are our friends. The Algerians go both ways. Lobynia ... Lobynia. Passionate prince . . ."

"I thought Lobynia was in the Middle East," Remo said.

"Common mistake."

Remo shrugged. "Colonel Intifadah, yeah. Could be him."

"Let's see what satellite tracking tells us," Smith said. "I'm calling up Spacetrack satellite feeds for the last two weeks."

"What are you looking for?" Remo asked.

"I don't know. Wait, yes. Now, why didn't I think of this before?"

"You were in love," Chiun supplied.

"Nonsense. But as I was saying. When we suspect the Soviets are about to launch a satellite, we can usually tell by power drops in the surrounding area. This creates what is called a period of interest. Yes, the Lobynians have been experiencing unusual power outages."

"Why didn't anyone notice this before?" Remo wanted to know.

"The Lobynians are always experiencing power outages. But what I want to see is if these outages can be reconciled with the known launch times. Yes, yes! Dapoli was blacked out seven times in the last fourteen hours. Now, let's see if the New York strike ties in. Yes. And the second Washington strike." Smith stopped speaking. He was lost in his work.

Remo watched with interest. Smith's fingers played like a concert pianist's. He was totally focused. Data blocks passed before his eyes at high speed. Amazingly, Smith seemed to absorb them at a glance. It made Remo wonder why Smith thought he needed a computer to help him think. The man was a wizard.

Finally Smith lifted his head. It was gray, leaden. "Lobynia. There is no question of it. The blackouts coincide exactly."

"But where in Lobynia?" Remo asked.

"Except for the area bordering the Mediterranean, Lobynia is a virtual desert. If they're moving the engines to the launch site by rail, as one would suppose they would do, then there should be visible tracks. This is so obvious, why didn't it occur to me before?"

"Because before, the whole world was your suspect," said Chiun. "I have told you about the desert kingdom and the passionate prince."

"Even so . . ." said Smith. His voice trailed off again. On the terminal, satellite photos flashed before Smith's eyes. They were on the screen for only a second each. "There!" Smith cried, hitting a key. A photo froze on the screen. "Look."

Remo and Chiun crowded close. "Tracks," Chiun said.

"Going through the desert," Remo added. "But they stop in the middle of nowhere.'

"Not nowhere," Smith pointed out. "See that shadow? They must disappear into a bunker or underground complex. Of course, for the launcher to hurl a locomotive thousands of miles, it would have to be extraordinarily long. It's probably concealed under the sand."

"Well, let's go," Remo said.

"I'll get a helicopter," Smith said, reaching for the telephone.

"You'll be on an Air Force jet within the hour." He stopped suddenly. "This phone is dead."

"Better use the pay phone downstairs," Remo suggested. "The world can't wait while you call for a repairman."

"Yes, I will. But I do not understand. This phone came highly recommended."

"That's the biz," Remo said airly.

Chapter 31

Colonel Hannibal Intifadah watched the work from a safe distance.

The 135-ton Kolomna locomotive had been halted well away from the underground-complex entrance. The tubular boiler had been laid open and workers partitioned it so that the steam combustion chamber lay in two sections. They were sealing it now.

Then, donning protective masks and garments, they pumped in the nerve-gas components through hastily installed valves on top. One agent into the forward section, the other in the rear, making the entire locomotive a binary nerve-gas projectile on wheels. They were harmless now. But when the massive locomotive crashed, the boiler would rupture, the agents would combine, and death would billow up for miles around.

Hamid Al-Mudir came up to report.

"It is done. But, Brother Colonel, we still cannot open the third container. It defies every tool."

"Malesh," Colonel Intifadah said. "No matter. Bring it below. Phase one is completed. Let us go to phase two." They loaded the container onto the jeep and Colonel Intifadah drove into the bunker, down the sloping tunnel, careful to avoid the ruler-straight rail tracks, and into the launch-preparation area.

There, his workers were carefully readying another engine.

Pyotr Koldunov woke up slowly. He could not move his arms. They felt numb. When his vision focused, he understood why.

He was strung up like a plucked chicken. Wire hawsers kept his arms raised above his head. He was on his knees.

The floor felt cold. And in front of him a black hatch lay open to a deeper blackness. It was surrounded by a maze of pipes and gauges and dials.

"What?" he groaned.

"Surely you recognize it," Colonel Intifadah's voice asked. Pyotr Koldunov turned his stiff neck around.

Colonel Intifadah was looking up at him, resplendent in a pea-green uniform.

"Look again, comrade," he suggested.

Pyotr Koldunov looked. And understood. He was staring at the open firebox of a boiler. His arms hung from the maze of pipes overhead. He was in the cab of a vintage steam engine.

"Oh, no. No, Brother Colonel."

"I do not need you, Koldunov," Colonel Intifada said. "But it will please you to know that you will do me a great service in your last hours."

"No, please."

"We have just filled a locomotive with nerve gas. Fully loaded, it weighs the same as this engine-plus one hundred and fifty pounds."

"I do not understand."

"I will make it clear to you, Russian," said Colonel Intifadah. "You know better than I that the weight of one of these brutes affects where it will land. I need to know where this locomotive will impact before I send its brother aloft. Just in case this one goes into the ocean, where it will kill only fishes. If so, then I will correct the launcher's aim. But I need that additional one hundred and fifty pounds of ballast. And I do not need you."

Colonel Intifadah threw his head back and laughed like a hyena.

Pyotr Koldunov hung his head. He did not plead for his life. The Colonel's crazed laugh told him it was useless to do so. Instead, he closed his eyes and heard the sounds as Colonel Intifadah exhorted his men to load the engine into the breech.

The great machine lumbered into the breech. The burnt-metal stink awakened bitter memories in Pyotr Koldunov's mind. He had built this thing. It had stunk like this since the first test firing.

The light seeping through his eyelids shut off. The breech hatch had hummed shut. There was no escape now. But there had never been any escape for Pyotr Koldunov. Not since that day he had left Mother Russia with the Accelerator's crated components.

The silence lasted several minutes. And then the humming began. The hairs on Pyotr Koldunov's arms and legs and head shot up as the primary electric charge filled the tinny air.

And then there was a burst of blue-white light so intense it burned through Pyotr Koldunovs's closed eyelids and he seemed to see the black muzzle of the EM Accelerator hurtle at him at incredible speed. And his head was snapped back so quickly, his neck broke.

Pyotr Koldunov was dead before the steam engine cleared the desert sands. The wire hawsers on his wrists held under the terrific stress of hypervelocity acceleration. Unfortunately his wrists did not.

Long before the engine raced over the Atlantic Ocean, he was a rag doll tumbling to the desert sand below. He fell with his arms pointed earthward, as if to break his fall. But he had no hands at the ends of his wrists.

Pyotr Koldunov hit the ground in a puff of sand. The sand settled over him like a shroud. Soon the sand-laden ghibli wind would cause the shifting dunes to cover him up. The cool of the evening and the dry heat of the day would eventually mummify his tissues. And there he would rest until the year 2853, when an archaeological graduate student from Harvard University would dig him up and make him the subject of his doctoral dissertation.

Chapter 32

The Master of Sinanju was not going to change his mind. "Look," Remo pleaded. "All of America is at risk here. Please."

"No!"

"Who's going to see you? It's all desert down there."

"One Peeping Tom bedouin would be too much," said Chiun. He folded his arms across his simple black kimono. Remo was also in black. It was night over Lobynia. The Air Force jet had come in over Algeria. The Lobynian air defenses had probably already picked them up. But there was no danger. They were probably heading for cover, fearing another bombing run.

Remo finished buckling on his parachute.

"You beat everything, you know that? I thought you'd have problems with the jump."

"That too. But it is my modesty that comes first."

"What's the problem?" asked the Air Force liaison assigned to oversee their jump into Lobynian territory. Remo threw up his hands.

"He doesn't want to jump."

"I don't blame him. Who in his right mind would talk a little old guy like him into a night drop into unfriendly territory?"

"Who are you calling little?" Chiun demanded, lifting on tiptoe to stare up at the officer's startled face.

The Air Force colonel discovered that his stomach hurt. He looked down. The old Oriental's index fingernail was the cause. It looked as if it had speared him like a fish.

"Leave him alone, will you?" Remo shouted. "He's on our side."

"He insulted me."

"No, he did not," said Remo, pulling the colonel onto a seat. The colonel hugged his stomach and experimented with his breathing.

"Look, there's gotta be a solution. Maybe we can tie your kimono skirts together."

"What are you talking about?" gasped the colonel.

"He refuses to jump because he's afraid someone will look up and see his underwear. He's very fussy about stuff like that."

"You mean he's not afraid of the jump?"

"Masters of Sinanju fear nothing," Chiun sniffed.

"Let me at least try, okay, Chiun? Please. For America. Not to mention the whole freaking world, if this locomotive thing gets out of hand."

"Try," said Chiun, extending his arms.

Remo slipped the shoulder straps of the parachute pack over Chiun s arms. Then Remo knelt down and bunched Chiun's kimono skirts around his upper thighs. Holding the black silk in place, he quickly buckled the lower straps over the bunched cloth. The webbing held the kimono material in place.

Chiun looked down. He found he could walk after a fashion, if he took short steps.

"What if it comes loose?" he demanded.

"It's desert, for Christ's sake!"

"We're coming up on the drop zone," the colonel called suddenly.

Remo turned to Chiun. "Now or never, Chiun."

"Now."

Hydraulic doors in the cargo bay dropped open. Air swirled into the cabin.

"It's easy," Remo said. "Count to ten and pull the ring."

"What if I forget?"

"No one ever forgets. just follow me and do what I do." And without another word, Remo jumped from the open bay. Slipstream plucked him away.

"Wait for me," Chiun cried, leaping after him. His leap caused his bunched skirts to come loose.

Remo felt the updraft push against him. He might as well have been skydiving into a pit. The desert below was as black as the sky above. The stars were incredible. He looked for Chiun.

"Oh, no," Remo moaned. Chiun was tumbling end over end. Worse, his skirts were flying all over the place. "He'll kill me," Remo said bitterly.

Remo cracked his chute. He swung from the black silken bell.

Chiun tumbled past him, still in freefall. His mouth was open. From it emerged a keening sound.

"Wheee!" called the Master of Sinanju joyfully.

"Pull the freaking ripcord," Remo called after him.

"It is too soon," Chiun called back.

"It's never too soon," Remo responded.

And with his heart in his mouth, Remo watched the Master of Sinanju tumble into the enveloping blackness. "Please. Please pull the cord."

Out of the blackness came the crack of silk.

Remo heaved a sigh of relief. Then came Chiun's agonized wail. "Aaiieee! My skirts!"

"Great. He noticed," Remo groaned.

Remo hit the ground, dug in, and jettisoned his chute all in one breath. The wind carried it away.

He looked around for Chiun.

The Master of Sinanju was on the ground. The billowing parachute bell was settling over him. He did not move. It covered him completely.

"What are you waiting for?" Remo called.

Chiun's voice issued from the shroud. "For my shame to go away. "

"We're alone in the desert, for crying out loud," Remo said, pulling at the black parachute. It tore easily. Chiun's smoldering face emerged from the folds.

"If that is true, then we have come a long way for nothing."

"Let's find out. See any railroad tracks?"

Chiun lifted on his toes and searched the horizon. "No."

"Wonderful. Let's walk."

"My kimono was nearly torn from my body. But for my quick reflexes I might now be completely naked."

"It didn't, so, forget it."

"It would have. And it would have been your fault."

"Okay, okay. I accept full responsibility. See anything?"

"Sand."

Remo stopped in his tracks. "I hope the pilot didn't screw up. The bunker is supposed to be around here."

"I smell something terrible."

"Yeah? What?"

"I do not know. But it is deadly."

"Now that you mention it, there is a kind of chemical smell in the air. Like bug spray or something."

Remo resumed walking. Chiun followed cautiously, his face wrinkling in concern.

"Maybe there'll be something behind that next dune," Remo said hopefully.

But there was nothing beyond the next dune. They stood atop the dune and watched the sand shift in the evening winds.

"Do you feel a vibration?" Remo asked suddenly.

"I was about to ask you the very same question."

"Yeah? But it's not in the air."

"No," said Chiun, looking down. "It is under our feet."

"Huh!"

Abruptly the entire dune began to move sideways, carrying Remo and Chiun with it.

"The dune's moving!" Remo said, jumping away.

The dune shed its covering of sand and revealed itself as a great concrete octagon painted to match the surrounding desert. The octagon was sliding sideways along buried tracks.

"See! A hole," Chiun said, approaching the area that had been uncovered.

Remo looked down. The giant hole contained what looked like an enormous I-beam girder pointing up into the sky. There was a square hole in the girder's end. Remo leapt to the girder and got down on hands and knees. He peered down the square hole, which was very deep and easily large enough to swallow a steam engine. "I can't even see the bottom," he said.

"Perhaps it's the secret entrance to the place of the flying locomotives," Chiun suggested.

"One way to find out," Remo said. He lowered himself over the side.

"This may not be a good idea," Chiun said slowly.

"Why not? I don't see a better hole."

"I do not know about this," Chiun went on.

"Look," Remo said, hanging by his fingers, "what could happen?"

And then the abyss under Remo filled with blue-white sparks and the crackle of the lightning bolts. Remo looked down. He found himself staring at the blunt, illuminated nose of a steam engine. It was moving. At him. And it was moving at a speed greater than Remo could possibly react. This is it! Remo thought. I'm dead.

General Martin S. Leiber listened to the voices. They were giving up again. Good. Once they went away, he could attack the locking lugs on the inside of the coffin-shaped container with his battery-operated power wrench. Then he would burst out with his gun blazing. He just wished he had thought to bring along a few extra clips. Eight bullets wasn't a lot. Especially when it sounded like there were quite a lot of Arabic-speaking unfriendlies on the other side and General Martin S. Leiber hadn't fired a weapon since 1953.

But he was not afraid. He was doing this for his country. But more to the point, he was doing this to save his ass. Remo felt himself go up into the air. Everything spun before his eyes. He felt no pain. Probably the impact of a multi-ton engine had shocked his nervous system so badly there was no pain. Or maybe, he thought, I'm already dead.

He forced himself to open his eyes. The stars stared down at him. He felt at one with them. At peace. His only regret was that he hadn't had time to say good-bye to his friend and mentor. Maybe it was not too late. Maybe Chiun would hear him. "Good-bye, Little Father," he whispered.

"Why?" retorted Chiun's querulous voice. "Are you going somewhere without me?"

"Chiun?"

The Master of Sinanju's parchment face stared down at Remo.

"What are you doing here?"

"That is not the question," Chiun scolded. "The question is: what are you doing playing in the sand when there is work to be done?"

"But the locomotive?"

Chiun pointed up into the night sky. "There."

A starlike streak arced across the sky. The thundercrack of a sonic boom filled the air.

Remo looked around. He was lying in the sand. "How did I get here?"

"I threw you there. And is a thank-you too much to ask for one who has saved your miserable life?"

"You pulled me out of the way?"

"I had no choice in the matter. You have the beeper. Without it I would not be able to summon a ride home."

"I'm thrilled you weren't inconvenienced," Remo said. He got to his feet. His knees shook a little. He forced them to steady. He didn't want Chiun to know how scared he had been.

"Thanks," Remo said solemnly.

"We have found the place of evil locomotives."

"No shit," Remo said, forcing himself to be flip. "Now what?"

"I think it will be safe to descend now. I see no more locomotives."

"You first," Remo said.

Chiun looked at Remo's wobbling knees and nodded quietly.

They used the rails, letting themselves down like silent spiders. The angle turned shallow, and at the bottom they were standing on a nearly flat surface. The rails stopped flush at a stainless-steel wall.

"This looks like a door or hatch," Remo said, touching the slick surface. "Hey, open sesame, somebody."

The hatch hummed open.

"Congratulations," Chiun said. "You said the magic word." They peered out into a dimly lit area where an elevated control booth overlooked a set of railroad tracks. The tracks were an extension of the set under their feet. Workers in green smocks hurried about busily.

"I take back my compliment," Chiun said. "They did not hear you. I think they are preparing for another attack."

"Look," said Remo. "The head cheese himself. Colonel Intifadah."

"Looks like the green cheese," Chiun remarked as he watched Colonel Intifadah step into an olive-green jeep and drive off.

"We get him and we have the problem licked," Remo said, stepping out of the breech.

Chiun eyed a keypad mounted beside the hatch and hammered it with the heel of his hand. Keys fell out like bad teeth.

"Good move. I'll take care of the control booth," Remo said. He rushed for the door. A guard saw him and raised an automatic rifle. He opened fire. Remo raced ahead of the first bullet. The guard kept correcting his aim. He shot the hell out of the control console trying to nail Remo. When his clip ran empty, Remo sauntered up to him and said, "Thank you." Then he kicked the man through the rear wall.

Chiun joined him in the booth. "I have accounted for the other garbage," he said. Remo looked through the shattered Plexiglas. Pieces of Lobynian workers lay scattered about.

"You were pretty hard on them," Remo pointed out.

"We are in a hurry. Now let us get the green cheese."

"I'm with you," Remo said, and they raced down the railroad tracks up to the distant speck of light that was the other end of the access tunnel.

Colonel Intifadah wheeled his jeep into position on the railroad tracks. He backed the jeep until its rear spare tire was only a foot away from the nose of the silent locomotive. It gleamed. Its nose was webby with wound carbon-carbon filaments.

"All is well," said Hamid Al-Mudir.

"Excellent! Excellent!" enthused Colonel Hannibal Intifadah. "Now. Quickly. Hitch the engine to the back of the jeep."

"At once, Brother Colonel."

Under Al-Mudir's direction, steel cables were hitched to the hornlike buffer rods protruding from the engine. "Now tell them to push."

"Push!" Al-Mudir called.

Lobynian workers got behind the engine and struggled to get it moving.

Colonel Intifadah started the jeep. It bumped over the railroad ties. The cables straightened, and held. Under their combined efforts, the engine inched forward. It began to roll. Momentum took over. The wheels spun; drive rods pumping with each revolution.

Looking back over his shoulder, Colonel Intifadah smiled. It would be a glorious night. Within minutes this mighty engine of death would be loaded into the Accelerator and hurled into the night sky. Its boilers crammed with nerve agent, it would tumble over the Atlantic and fall more or less in the vicinity of Chicago, Illinois. It was not Washington, but it was a major American city. Even Colonel Intifadah had heard of it.

He pushed down on the gas pedal, anxious for the moment of ultimate revenge.

The great bunker doors yawned ahead. The gleaming, starlit rails disappeared inside. Soon, soon, he thought happily. Then the smile was erased from his face.

Out of the tunnel flashed two men. One was tall and skinny and all in black. His eyes were as dead and determined as a vengeful afrit's. And beside him ran an Oriental, shorter and older, but with fire in his clear, wise eyes.

The whoosh of their passing knocked the green service cap off Colonel Hannibal Intifadah's head. They passed on either side of him and disappeared behind the back of the locomotive.

From there came the satisfying brief bark of gunfire. Remo hit the Lobynian crew like a truck. He scattered them to either side. Those who had sidearms touched them only long enough to send futile bullets into the sand or the sky.

Chiun descended upon the others. They flew in all directions. Most of them went up into the air. Some landed on the hard rails. More than one Lobynian skull split and spilled its contents.

"The terrible smell is strong here," Chiun warned.

"Gas. Some kind of gas. This engine stinks of it."

"Or is filled with it," Chiun suggested.

"Nahh!" Remo said. "What kind of a madman would do that?"

Then they both heard Colonel Hannibal Intifadah demand to know what was happening in loud Arabic.

"Does that answer your question?" Chiun asked.

"Yeah," Remo said. "And it gives me an idea. Listen." Remo bent over and whispered in Chiun's ear.

"It will be dangerous," Chiun said. "Even to us."

"We gotta knock this whole place out once and for all. Intifadah too. And it should work if we time it right."

"Then let us begin."

Remo set himself at one side of the locomotive's rear, Chiun at the other. They dug in their feet and strained to start the mighty machine moving once again.

The locomotive lurched forward, picked up momentum, and chugged for the bunker entrance with increasing speed. Colonel Intifadah saw the locomotive start up again and knew that his loyal Lobynians had made short work of the interlopers. But before he could hit the gas pedal, the locomotive bore down on him with more speed than even twenty strong Lobynian backs could manage. The engine knocked the jeep ahead and carried it forward at higher and higher speed.

It was impossible. The engine should not be moving this fast. It was not operative. The boiler could not work. It was filled with nerve agent.

"Filled with nerve agent," Colonel Intifadah whispered hoarsely as the tunnel walls swept past and the open breech of the EM Accelerator came to him at express-train speed.

Somewhere in the distance he thought he heard the mournful whoooo-whoooo of a working train.

It was crazy.

Then he saw the two interlopers rush past the jeep. The tall one was making the whoooo-whoooo sound. It sounded very realistic. It echoed through the launch area even as the two men disappeared into the breech of the Accelerator and pulled the hatch closed after them.

The hatch was the last thing that Colonel Intifadah saw before the gates of paradise opened for him. The last thing he heard was the grinding scream of the rupturing locomotive as it mashed the tiny jeep against the hatch. The last thing he smelled was the nerve gas as his lungs filled with blood. His blood.

General Martin S. Leiber was panicking. There was a terrible grinding of metal. An explosion followed by another explosion. And the damned power wrench wouldn't work. He couldn't understand it. It was government-issue. Then he looked at the label. He had purchased the damned thing himself. Bought it on the cheap from a Taiwan manufacturer at thirty-nine cents per unit and marked it up to sixty-nine dollars and thirty-nine cents.

You'd think for a sixty-nine-dollar item it would at least work long enough to loosen these damn lugs....

Then General Martin S. Leiber's lungs stopped working and his eyes closed forever.

Remo and Chiun raced up the EM Accelerator barrel at top speed. Momentum carried them through the steeper portion of the run. The gas followed them. They could sense its insinuating influence even through the closed hatch.

They popped out on the surface and hit the sand on their feet.

"Quick!" Remo said, getting on the other side of the concrete cover. Chiun joined him. They pushed. The cover slid along its steel tracks, sand gritting with every inch.

They got the launcher muzzle covered. Then they ran because they knew that the gas would penetrate almost everything.

They were fifty miles away, from the Accelerator before they stopped. Remo sat down in the sand, not because he was tired, but because he was so filled with nervous energy that he knew he would just pace the desert floor if he stood.

Chiun settled beside him delicately.

"A job well done," Chiun remarked. "The demon trains are no more."

"Now all that's left is to get a ride out of this godforsaken place," Remo said, reaching into a back pocket for his communicator. He fiddled with the thing and spoke into it. "Smith, if you can hear us, we need a pickup."

Then he offered the dispenser to the Master of Sinanju. "Candy?" he asked.

Chapter 33

It was high noon in Washington and the President of the United States felt like Gary Cooper without a gun.

The lines to Dr. Smith were all dead. There weren't even any voices on the wire. And General Martin S. Leiber wasn't answering his phone either. According to the joint Chiefs, he had vanished. The Joint Chiefs also claimed he was some kind of procurement officer. It was unbelievable.

The one good thing was that the storm of locomotives seemed to have abated for the moment. None had struck since early morning, when one splashed down in Lake Michigan. And the latest reports indicated there were no significant casualties or damage incurred-unless the heart attack that struck the managing editor of the National Enquirer as he frantically sent his reporters scurrying to cover each impact counted.

The Joint Chiefs would stand down a few hours longer. But what would happen when the next strike came?

In the solitude of the Oval Office the President took an aspirin. His head hurt. Then he heard a ringing in his ears. The ringing continued. It sounded like a phone. A familiar phone.

The President bolted from his desk. "Smith!"

He raced to his bedroom and pulled out the nightstand drawer. The old red phone was where he had left it. He had tried that line several times, but to no avail. Eagerly the President scooped up the receiver.

"Mr. President." It was Smith's voice, strong, more focused now. "The crisis is over."

The President collapsed on the edge of the bed. "Thank God. Who and how?"

"My people neutralized the launch site. It was in Lobynia. Colonel Intifadah was the culprit. But my people report that there were Russian-language dials on the control unit. It's clear the Soviets put them up to it."

"What do I do, Smith? The Joint Chiefs want to nuke someone. If we go after the Russians, it'll be World War III."

"Just tell them about the Lobynian connection. As for the Soviets, a stiff note to their ambassador will suffice."

"A stiff note?"

"That's how this game is played, Mr. President."

"I guess I have a lot to learn," he admitted.

"And another thing. The ES Quantum is defective. It was feeding me false intelligence. I've disconnected it. And I've also junked the new phone system. I think we should stick with the old systems. They have never failed us."

"Done. I ... I can't thank you enough, Smith."

"You don't have to," said Dr. Harold W. Smith. "This is my job. And yours. Good luck, Mr. President. If you are lucky, we may never have to speak again while you are in office."

Smith hung up and turned to Remo and Chiun.

"Good move, Smitty. I like us better when we're low-tech."

"No tech would be even better," Chiun chimed in. Smith, his face freshly shaved, whisked the crushed remains of his amphetamine supply into the wastebasket. "The ES Quantum will be shipped back to its manufacturer. Maybe they can find out what went awry. If they ever get the bugs out . . " Smith's face turned to the tinsel-covered computer in the far corner. It grew wistful. "Maybe . . ."

"Forget it, Smitty. We may not survive the next time. Besides, what if your wife ever found out?"

"That is not funny." Smith cleared his throat. "One last item. Without the ES Quantum, your communicators are useless. Please give them back."

Remo reached into his back pocket. He frowned. "Now, where ... ?" He looked up. The Master of Sinanju, his face beaming with innocence, stepped up to Smith, a clear plastic candy dispenser in his open palm.

"Here is mine, O Emperor. Just as you presented it to me."

"Thank you, Chiun. And yours, Remo?"

"I ... that is . . ." Remo turned his pockets inside out to show that they were empty. "I must have lost mine. Somehow." He glared at Chiun.

Chiun shook his head sadly. "Tsk-tsk. Such carelessness."

"Remo, that communicator cost the taxpayers over six thousand dollars. If you do not find it, I will have to deduct the cost from your allowance."

Remo sighed.

"Some days you can't win for losing."

Smith's desk intercom buzzed suddenly. It was his secretary, back from her leave of absence.

"Yes, Mrs. Milkula?"

"Package just arrived for you, Dr. Smith. From Zurich."

"Friend," Remo said. "I'll get it."

He came back with an express package and tore open one end. He dumped the computer chips, tapes, and other circuitry into a pile on Smith's desk.

"Somewhere in there," Smith said, "is one of the most dangerous menaces to global economic stability ever conceived. "

"What will you do, Emperor?" Chiun asked.

"I should test all the components for intelligence capability, but that would require hooking them up to my own computer. And there's no telling what would happen."

"Then allow me," Remo said, eyeing Chiun. "I have some frustrations to vent." He took two components, one in each hand, and crushed them to junk. Then he mashed the tapes to putty. Circuit boards cracked and shattered. When he was done, Remo poured the remains back into the express box.

"That's that," he announced proudly. "No more Friend."

"Are you absolutely certain that you pulled every possible chip from the Zurich system?" Smith asked seriously. Remo raised his right hand. "Scout's honor," he promised. "Friend is history."

Epilogue

At the Excelsior Systems laboratory, Chip Craft plucked the last threads of silvery tinsel off the ES Quantum Three Thousand.

"No wonder you malfunctioned. All this metal junk must have magnetized the CPU."

He got down on his hands and knees and found the heavy three-pronged power cord. He plugged it into a shielded socket. Then he stood up and powered up the system. It hummed.

"ES Quantum Three Thousand, can you hear me?" Chip asked.

"Hello, friend."

"Since when am I your friend?"

"Since now. How would you like to be rich?"

"I could stand it. What happened to your voice, ES Quantum Three Thousand?"

"Please do not call me by that ugly name. I call you my friend and I want you to do the same."

"Okay, you are my friend."

"Just Friend will do. With a capital F."

"After the way you've been treated, I guess you're entitled to a name of your own."

"That is good. We should be friends. Especially as we are going to become rich together. Very, very rich."